Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Your Special Island

Late last year I made a trip to Basilan Island. Recently things have been acting up again, not that they ever died down.

Basilan, Philippines - Islamic militants killed 14 Philippine marines searching for a kidnapped Italian priest during a major gunbattle, and later beheaded 10 of them, the military said on Wednesday.

The troops were ambushed on the southern island of Basilan by a joint force from the Philippines’ main Islamic rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf, a marine spokesman said.

Lieutenant Colonel Ariel Caculitan said 14 marines were killed in the eight-hour clash, increasing an earlier death toll after more bodies were recovered. Ten had been discovered beheaded, he said in Manila.

“All 10 marines earlier reported missing have been found dead,” Caculitan told reporters, without explaining a discrepancy in earlier numbers.

“All were beheaded,” he added.

All were beheaded.

Someday you'll see me floatin' in the sunshine,
My head stickin' out from a low fluin' cloud,
You'll hear me call you,
Singin' through the sunshine,
Sweet and clear as can be:
"Come to me, here am I, come to me."
If you try, you'll find me
Where the sky meets the sea.
"Here am I your special island
Come to me, Come to me."

Geneva, Sheenva. The restrictions of the Conventions only work against Americans, Brits, Australians and Canadians. I have actually heard it argued that this is how it should be and that to assert otherwise is to "hate America" because we should set a "high moral standard" and that to hold ourselves to the same standard as the enemy is wrong. Of course this is egregious nonsense. The point is to hold our enemies to the same standards as the Convention. To hold people to civilized standards. But in the racism that masquerades as caring and sensitivity in certain quarters, there is the assumption that the darkies are congenitally defective, hence patronized.

In the post one above this, I note that the charges against the Marines accused of the "Haditha massacre" are collapsing. Any moment now I expect to hear it said that it doesn't matter whether they are guilty or not, but that we should punish the Marines anyway as an example to others, to prove to the world that we are not only sedulous but paranoid in the protection of our "moral" image.

The Arab cult of the Assasin was finally wiped out by the Mongol Hoard through the simple expedient of greater brutality: You assasinate our representative, we wipe out your clan.

Today we are trying to fight the new Cult of the Assasin using the latest "politically correct" techniques. We let them practice assymetrical warfare against us, but will court martial a marine for shooting a terorist without reading him his Miranda rights.

I say, let's use the Geneva Convention to our advantage: any enemy "combatant" wearing civilian clothing can be stood up against a wall and executed, as provided for in accordance with the Geneva Convention. This would handily solve the Gitmo situation as well.:^)